What are these intensives and how do they work?
Merci beaucoup, @daiwilliams. I would say you’re correct with the subjunctive comments there, so we’ll have to check on those.
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I think it happens with “que ca soit” a little later. Although it’s practiced alongside “que c’est…” and most of the examples use the “Je ne pens pas…” / pensez-vous…?" with the subjunctive and “je pens…” with the indicative. I’m sure a couple of “je pens que ca soit …” crop up.
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Did a few hours of Italian today (the first time I’ve been able to in a little over a week) and can report some errors with the audio files for:
“since”
“at”
“but at” (1 voice)
“now at” (1 voice)
“If it is” (given as “volevo sia”)
There is also a very long delay between the prompt of “I want this” and the answer.
I also have a query: sometimes the subjunctive (“sia”) is used after “penso” and sometimes the indicative (“sto”). Is that intentional?
Edit: to be clear, none of this was a major problem and I enjoyed my session. It’s a report not a complaint.
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I had a little try with Finnish - the very first audio file repeatedly refers to a course in Chinese, but it begins to teach Finnish after that 
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Sorry, that was my attempt to fix the Chinese course welcome! Fixed it earlier this morning - I was hoping it wasn’t live long anyone for anyone to spot it but it seems it was 
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Meanwhile, Gwyddeleg trwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg has reset to the beginning (because new version, I guess?), which has fixed the persistent audio file error.
I realise I am still not clear about what the fast forward button does, and how best to use it to catch up. Might I miss whole chunks of vocabulary that I have no way to check I’m skipping past?
Which leads me to a couple of thoughts about overall app design:
No hurry, but it would be great to have an in-app Help resource that offers explanations of this kind of thing, perhaps has a way to see listed what vocab the app reckons I’ve covered so far, and maybe has (even if a bit hidden away) a version number for the course (so I would know for sure when a new version has arrived).
I think for many people making the app interface as simple as possible, and taking all responsibility away for thinking about where you are in your learning is a massive benefit! A huge relief after stressful earlier language learning experiences in which we were blamed or shamed when we didn’t make progress.
Nonetheless, I think for those if us who enjoy language learning (including those who now enjoy it much more than we used to, because of SSIW) the capacity to have a clear picture of where we’re at, and to have some control over that (greater than trusting the algorithm with ‘take me forward a bit’ or ‘slow this down a little’) is quite important.
From the start with SSIW, I have loved the approach of “don’t memorise, don’t worry about learning, it’s SSIW’s job to look after the repetition needed” - combined with the capacity to ask questions in the forum and crucially the capacity to choose to repeat a CD, or to go back one or more CDs after a break. The encouragement to not go back far has always been right, but it’s the fact that it’s me choosing to act on that encouragement which has made diving back in and feeling out of my depth for a bit a challenging experience in only a positive way.
Similarly, the gamification of belt colours is likely very helpful for some people - but the relationship between the belt colours and how far through a course I am (for example) is not at all clear, and that again leads to a sense that the algorithm is in charge rather than me.
To be clear, I love this rollout of new languages, and will continue using the app and trying new languages.
But if, in due course, there were just a bit more clearly understandable control of progress (including for when I come back after a break), transparency about how far through a course I am, and somewhere a way to confirm what version of a course I’m on - I think this would be even better for those of us who want to (and are ready to) be in charge of our learning even while happily letting your course design and the algorithm be fully in charge of the teaching …
Does that make sense?
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It makes total sense and we’re working on building a whole suite of explanations of the methodology and how the app works, with a view to have a series of in-app resources that people can access.
It’s a balance between trying to get new languages out there as quickly as possible for people, and cleaning up the mess that this ends up creating!
There are always going to be a small number of errors in a course, which is why we won’t remove the beta tag for a fair while.
And we’re hoping that people report a these so that we can address them as quickly as possible.
Basically, these courses are massive. They have around 3,000 individual learning items to be introduced, and a handful of practice phrases for each one.
So with all the different voices we have well over 30,000 sound files.
And a few of these will be corrupted no doubt.
There will also be genuine mistakes, or phrases that are perhaps unclear which we really appreciate being told about.
Our experience in general is our audio file production method does occasionally have a spasm and produce utter nonsense.
And while we think we have got most of these, there are bound to be a few that slip through the net when we’re both making lots of new courses and having each course be so big.
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One thing that has concerned me is, what if some big distraction interrupts you, you react to it without pausing the app, and then come back after a few minutes, maybe even ten or twenty, and several new things have been introduced? Or some people like to use the app at bedtime… What if you fall asleep without pausing it?!
I know my mother has had doubts whether the revisit button is even actually taking her back (could be glitches, not sure). If you miss the introduction of a word or phrase, including potentially some explanation of irregular usage or idiomatic versus literal meaning, it seems there’s no way to get that introduction repeated? Revisiting gets you more prompts using the new words or phrases, but never the introduction repeated?
I think it would be good to have a real option for going back, for those times when life happens.
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That’s a fair concern, and he have spent some time thinking about how to address it without undermining the methodology, and are still discussing the way forward so thank you for the comments!
In terms of life happening, or falling asleep, the app will stop playing after a while and require you to interact with it to keep going - I believe this is currently at 30 minutes. So no matter what, you should never miss more than 30 minutes accidentally.
In this time, of course, things will have been introduced and it will feel quite scary to have to learn the new items having missed the introductions, but learning-wise there’s very little difference. The learning really happens during the prompts and not at the point of introduction, and we don’t think any explanations are really needed. In cases like these, what “revisit” is for is going back to slightly easier items to practice them more. Each phrase is repeated twice, so you get a chance to try to say it, and then you get the chance to hear it and try it again.
You won’t get introductions again when you “revisit”, but while you’re revisiting you won’t get any new introductions - it’s a chance to get more used to the phrases that were practiced earlier. Pressing it repeatedly will let you practice older content.
Don’t worry though - we can definitely see that something needs to be done here and we’re on it!
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I have a bit of general feedback about Aran’s “break talks” – they still don’t seem to be skippable. I can press the skip button, and it stops the playback, but after a few new phrases, Aran will try to start the same “break talk” (It’s the one with the brain constantly rewiring the connections)
I’ve just seen this while revisiting the Southern Welsh course.
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Hi @Hendrik
No they aren’t Skip-able yet. It is on the To Do list. There is a lot going on at present.
Rich 
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It’s something we will be having a look at in 2025 as part of some experiments we want to run. Nothing firm just yet but lots of ideas!
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I wasn’t quite sure where to put this, as it doesn’t concern new languages, but rather the new delivery mechanism (i.e. the new SaySomethingIn App) of the Welsh material, specifically the Southern course…
I have lavishly applied the skip button, and I seem to have reached the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, because I don’t get “The Welsh for …”-bits anymore, just random phrases to revise. But cross-checking the last “new” phrase with the vocabulary list of the challenges, it appears that level 3 is still not incorporated, is that correct?
(I also have just been awarded the brown belt with a black stripe. Now the field “Next belt” shows nothing … just blank space… but the app estimates that I’ll reach the “blank belt” in 67 days 
)
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Well, do come back in 67 days, and tell us what happens when reach it! 
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Croeso i Milliways…
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Something I’ve found that seems (Android) app-related (probably language-independent), but that I’m finding hard to document the steps to reproduce is: sometimes I have to ‘force stop’ the app and reopen it to get it to play any audio (closing it from the task switcher isn’t enough; Android 14, Samsung flavour).
I had to do it this morning with Gwyddeleg trwy Welsh, but that was not entirely unexpected as the course had been updated (but newcomers to the whole SSi ecology might not know what to do).
I’ve also found it happen quite a few times with the Italian, if I’ve left it for a while & then want to resume. It’s not always, and I’m afraid I’m unclear about steps to reproduce: ‘skip’ at the wrong moment might be a factor, and/or changing WiFi/mobile data network, or exactly what state it was left in & resumed from. Manufacturer’s battery optimisation might be putting bits of it to sleep, too.
I’m sorry that’s vague, and I’ll try to flesh it out a bit. I’m just concerned that if ‘force stop’ is what works for me (turn it off and back on in software, if not hardware), new or less IT-confident users might just complain/leave reviews saying “pos, doesn’t work,” which wouldn’t be fair or accurate. Flagging @thomas-cassidy and @rich.
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That’s when you pass through a wormhole to a parallel universe 
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We will look into this.
Rich
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I’m having similar in the Northern Welsh course. It’s looping through around twenty or so questions all the time, never introduces new material and the skip button has no effect.
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